Primary Navigation

Archive | false statements

Bloomberg News has an article (behind a paywall) that surveys Judge (and presumptive Justice) Kavanaugh’s criminal law jurisprudence. The short story is that Judge Kavanaugh has been very bad for criminal defendants; one former SDNY prosecutor predicts that “he will be a reliable vote for the government in criminal cases, along the lines of Justice Alito.”

There are, however, a few glimmers of hope:

Concurring in an opinion reversing a murder conviction for faulty jury instructions, Judge Kavanaugh explained that, notwithstanding the defendant’s “heinous crime,” he was “unwilling to sweep under the rug” that the instructions left the jury with an incorrect understanding of the mens rea requirements governing second-degree murder and manslaughter. United States v. Williams, 836 F.3d 1, 20 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

Defendant-appellant Saeed went through the entire district court process – arrest, trial, safety-valve proffer and sentence – under the name Reginald Davis, a stolen identity. He also, according to a footnote in this opinion,tried to continue using that identity in the circuit, but the court would not permit it. It is his use of that identity that generated the most action on his appeal.

Saeed was arrested in 2009 after law enforcement agents seized a package at Newark Airport that contained 787 grams of heroin. A controlled delivery, followed by some monitored telephone calls, ultimately implicated Saeed. Saeed’s attorney told the government that Saeed might be eligible for safety-valve relief. Warning that Saeed would have to reveal his true identity, the government invited him to a proffer. Saeed attended, and continued to insist that …